Body Images and Mad Men
So the girl walked in the other day and caught me Mad Men-ing myself. (Listen, I know I’m busy, but can’t I succumb to a narcissistic time-waster every once in a while?) Here I am as the boss lady at Sterling Cooper.
In case you live under a rock (or merely don’t have AMC in your cable line-up) Mad Men is the fantastic show about advertising in New York in the middle of the last century. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and it dates to a time when the desirable women had kickin’ curves.
Anyway, Olive immediately climbed into my lap and wanted to make one of herself. First, she chose a pink for her skin “because it looks like my skin. This is going to be me.” Then she chose a body type from the three choices and said, “I pick the skinny one because I’m skinny.”
I didn’t make a big deal out of it but WHAT DID I JUST HEAR COME OUT OF MY 4-YEAR-OLD’S MOUTH?!! The good news is that she seemed to say it completely without value judgement, and from her nightly bouts of streaking we know her to have a wonderful body image. But my heart breaks that this vocabulary is already starting to develop. I thought we had at least until the Hannah Montana/iCarly years to start thinking about these things.
She ended on the accessory page by turning down a martini, a cup of coffee, and a cigarette and going straight for the donut, the healthiest of the choices. (I know. I’m an awesome mom for letting her do this.)
So tell me, is it me and my own body image hang-ups, or are kids getting wind of societal expectations too early? This post today from Miz Fit makes me think that it’s not just me.
July 29th, 2009 at 6:48 am
I know what frightens me (and yes that isnt too powerful a word) is that we parents can be doing a pretty damn good job of fostering their self-esteem and the world still sends all the SKINNNNYMINIBLONDTHINISGOOD messages.
uh, wanna guest post?
July 29th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Are you kidding? No. It’s not you.
My brother’s pediatrician put his daughters (3 now, was 2 at the time) on a DIET. YES A DIET. I was so mad I could spit. Actually, it was more like disbelief than anger. SHE IS 2 YEARS OLD AND ACTIVELY GROWING, AND YOU’RE LIMITING HER CALORIES!?? The same pediatrician said she should “get more exercise” to my somewhat amazed brother who then hopefully replied that she does very little but run around constantly ALL DAY LONG.
She’s about the same size & weight as Olive was at that age, by the way. I’m still kind of seething.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:37 am
It’s seems way to young, but we recently had to deal with the class bully telling girls what clothes to wear/where to shop to be “cool” and even telling one girl that she was fat and needed to go on a diet. This was 2nd grade! What’s to come when she reaches 3rd grade?